53. Maren
Maren
Astep behind me, I felt Aegir’s muscles tighten as Thaan took to the air.
Thaan’s arms unfolded, black and thick with feathers, and he entered the sky in the same moment I dove, flying over Selena with open talons. Screams fired like trebuchets behind me, the hard break of wings against air.
I didn’t see the rest. I ran and jumped, pulling the waves under my feet to catch Kye like a cradle. Catch him. Keep him.
Anger lay within the tide, roused and poised for violence.
It drank him in a bubbling-white gulp, pulling him deep.
The sea dragged away from the cliffs, rocks emerging from the froth like shoes under the lace of a lifted skirt.
Fear tangled with focus, the world narrowing to the point where Kye hit the sea, and I loosed myself toward it like an arrow at a target.
My hands hit first, slicing into the sea’s flesh, and I pulsed down into the depths.
He wasn’t far. Long arms and legs stroked for daylight, and though he was likely a skilled enough swimmer on his own, relief bloomed behind his eyes as he locked on to me, cutting through the current for him.
His hand reached for mine, and I turned as my fingers tightened around it, ready to dash back to open air. But he tugged me down like I once had, solid hands enveloping the sides of my jaw, our fingers still linked as his mouth crashed with mine.
Heartbeats battered against his ribs, and when I pulled away to guide him up, he barely moved, eyes closed against my cheek.
Come on, Kye. You need to rise.
I told you to stay. He didn’t sound upset that I hadn’t. His thumb scraped roughly over mine, his opposite hand slipping behind my nape. He’s afraid of you.
At least someone is. You’re welcome, by the way.
He took Selena.
I stared at him, open-mouthed in wordless horror.
And Aren—fucking suns, Aren. Terror fell through his eyes, panic crowding his thoughts until they were too thick and fast to read.
I knotted my hand in his and turned, kicking for the sun.
Rain poured over our heads, fresh and clean and rife with cold.
I grasped at the nearest ledge, scrambling up to make room for Kye to follow.
My father peered down from above, a hand over his heart as soon as he spotted me below. Hadrian and Diara appeared at his sides, legs swinging over rock as they scrambled down to reach us.
“Dimas and Leal went to find Aren,” Diara said, pulling me up beside her. Cuts and scrapes littered her arms, though Hadrian looked twice as beaten, the slant of his cheekbone quickly darkening to black, polished to a sheen by the rain.
In fact, they all looked terrible. Swollen lips and limping walks, ripped clothes and blood-smeared skin, cradling their winces as they breathed. Hadrian held his arm close to his body, teeth clenched as if it pained him to move it.
A needle seared a scorching thread between my ribs. I shouldn’t have let them leave without me.
Hadrian batted rain from his lashes, angling a finger at my pocket. “We were right. He came for you.”
But he’d left with Selena.
“He called Selena daughter,” Diara said, blinking back the rain.
It had all seemed to happen so fast, their words like a waterfall I'd stepped under, armed with a small bucket to catch the deluge. But at that I halted, unable to shift my widened eyes from her. “Daughter?”
That meant…
In my periphery, Cebrinne had clamped down on Pheolix’s shoulders, trying to convince him of something while he stared blankly back at her. She finally closed her mouth, her line of sight crossing with mine. Unlike the others, burns covered her body, raw and peeling patches beginning to blister.
Nori, I called, already crossing to Cebrinne, we need Aitne.
On our way. We recognized your star-wielding in the sky.
Where were you? I asked you to stay with the humans.
She paused, a stitch of frustration in her voice. I’m sorry, my Queen.
I ground my molars, forcing calm into my thoughts. I shouldn’t have expected my Naiads to do anything but complete a given task and return to me. They hadn’t sworn their loyalty to Kye. Still, a flare of heat licked along my bones, firing them red and bright like a blade left in a forge.
Seeing me coming, Cebrinne stepped away from Pheolix, walking at a slant to meet me where he couldn’t hear us.
“How did he burn you?” I asked, reaching for her arm to inspect the burns up close.
“Shield weed ash. Thaan threw it on the floor of Ano’s room.
I was fine with my boots on, but as soon as he knocked me down…
” Her mouth quirked in a hardened oh well kind of way.
Not something water-calling could heal, then.
“He knows you wear your bare feet everywhere. He didn’t want to meet you out in the open. ”
“I was a fool to stay behind, whether I avoided walking into a trap or not.” Hands over the sides of my waist, I tapped the corner of my hip bone impatiently.
Daughter.
I avoided the question I wanted to ask. “Any idea where Thaan would take Selena?”
Cebrinne’s gaze angled back at Pheolix. He hadn’t moved. “No more than we might have guessed before.” Something sparked behind her eyes. She rounded on her heel, hurrying back to Pheolix. “You’re no longer sworn to Thaan.”
The drone twitched as if he barely heard her, but he tracked the sound of her voice. His throat tightened. “No.”
“Was there anything he made you swear you couldn’t share? Anything you could never tell anyone?”
Pheolix’s lips parted. A veil of anger shifted behind his eyes, there and gone. He wrenched away, turning toward the palace. Toward Selena’s apartment in the western wing, determination in his steps.
As if he’d waited his entire life to walk inside.
Aren sat on Selena’s couch, Aitne crouched at his feet as she stoked healing water through his bones.
The rest of us watched as Pheolix slowly destroyed Selena’s study.
He’d started with the drawers of her little desk, pulling them out one at a time, rifling through books and papers, bringing them to the nearest set of eyes and asking what they said.
At the murmured answer, he shook his head, returning to yank the drawers out completely and upend them on the floor, sending his fingers to explore the alcoves left in their absence.
We tossed each other covert glances, unwilling to say a word. Simply meeting eyes was enough. Aegir had tried to step in those first few minutes and help, though what Pheolix was searching for, we didn’t know.
“I don’t need help,” Pheolix had snapped, unseeing eyes bloodshot, swimming with moisture.
So we watched, leaning our backs into the walls, crossing our arms. Pheolix had never struck me as a prideful Naiad the way Aegir did, but the way he grasped the legs of the desk and yanked, sending it backward and sending splintered oak across the floor, I knew he wouldn’t accept pity now.
Still, something ached as I watched him.
He knelt, feeling over the broken wood, chest tight, until he grew vexed enough he thrust the office’s only window open with a slam, hurling discarded pieces of the desk—then chair, then cushion, then shelves—out to the sea below.
Unwittingly, my gaze shifted to Cebrinne, watching from the corner to my right.
Her faraway stare sharpened as our eyes met.
I turned from the room, passing Selena’s shelves and table and couches into the hall, standing next to her dancing crane.
A moment later, Cebrinne stood beside me, arms folded tight.
“I didn’t know,” she murmured, staring at the scuffed flagstones along the floor. “But I wonder if Selena did. She didn’t seem surprised.”
“Do you think it’s true?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.
My stomach cramped at the thought. Thaan, my grandfather.
Thaan’s blood ran through my veins. Thaan, with anger entrenched as deeply within him as within me.
As much as the possibility taunted me, I couldn’t imagine how she must have felt.
“Thaan doesn’t lie,” Cebrinne said. “He doesn’t need to.
He knows the truth is much more effective.
Nothing wounds the soul like a truth we cannot change.
” Her eyes narrowed, and she shook her head, raven locks sifting from her shoulders.
“It changes nothing for me. I always hated him, and I always will. But Selena…it would have mattered to her. He would have mocked her, haunted her with that knowledge. He can wither to dust on Darkness’s shelves for all I care. I only want my sister free of him.”
I hesitated, tapping my heel against cool stone. Then reached for her hand. The motion felt awkward, clumsy. But I didn’t let go. “Do you know what Pheolix is searching for?”
“No,” she sighed. “Since we were children, we kept no secrets. Whatever she left for him, she’s left everyone in the dark, even me.”
“We’ll figure it out. We’ll find her. I promise.”
Hours passed. The rain thinned to a drizzle outside, which gave way to night. Pheolix’s fingers passed over every ridge, every corner, every hollow, until there was nothing left in the room except him.
Diara shifted almost nervously over her feet. “Pheolix? Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“No,” he answered, sliding down the wall until he hit the floor. He passed a dusty hand over his mouth, then wiped at his eyes.
She chewed a split lip, wincing as she glanced at me. Our meal tray from the kitchens, cod on a bed of wilted lemongrass, winter figs and stone berries, was only half eaten beside me. We’d picked at it together, our appetites drained from the day. “What are you looking for?”
His palms slid over the floor at his sides, where stone intersected with sand and worn-away grout. Time had etched dirt into the grooves, and he traced the crossroads of mortar as if his fingertips were a fine-toothed comb.
To be finally freed after twenty-six years, only to lose his mate in the same day.
Cold anger ripened through my chest as Pheolix shifted onto his knees, feeling along the floor for Mihauna-knew-what.
I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t think of what.
Every possible word felt like poison in my own mouth.
Aegir exhaled, the sound summoning my attention. “We need to talk about Selena. Thaan is in motion, even if we can’t see his steps. Tearing apart her study won’t help find either of them. This solves nothing. We need action.”
Pheolix grew cold, frozen over the floor. But burning metal radiated from his body as he tilted his head up toward Aegir’s voice, a dark savagery in his eyes. “You think I’m solving nothing?”
But the Videre was right, even if I hated that he’d aimed his words at Pheolix, the only one of us to attempt any progress in hours. We needed a strategy. More than training Naiads on Evenstar.
“You speak of action?” I said with a sudden snap, stalking from the room a second time.
Kye had said the palace was empty when they arrived. Incanted, most likely, and left to wait elsewhere. But they were trickling back now, enough maids and servants and guards that I opted for the open sky bridge to take me to the eastern towers, then back through the stone archway to the cliffs.
I could feel them following me, humans and Naiads watching with the same brand of caution and silence we’d just wasted half the day using to watch Pheolix. Just above the water, I aimed my glare at the moon high above us.
She hid like a coward, shadow draped over her like a cloak of night. Just a dim ring in a black sky, barely visible through the strands of sea-spun mist.
“Theia!” My voice shook with unguarded rage, my focus tightening on that hazy sphere. Wind kicked under my skirt, sweeping past my legs. Tiny sparks snapped and popped around my balled fists.
“What are you doing?” Cebrinne hissed.
“Knew I was going to be sent to Perpetuum today,” Leal murmured loudly behind me. “Didn’t think Maren would send me there.”
Brows low, Kye tilted into the nearest rock face, watching unflinchingly.
The dark sky didn’t stir.
“You sent us back to rid the world of Thaan,” I yelled into the empty night. “Guide us! Or watch us fail. If we can’t do it, there will be no beginning.”
Shadows curled around my feet like a cat, snaking up my leg and coiling around my shoulder. Cold dripped down my back like icy fingers against my skin. In my pocket, my stones flared a gentle blue under my skirts.
“What are you doing, sweet wraithling?” the shadow purred, his tendrils whisking and whirring next to my ear.
“Threatening a goddess,” I answered, my eyes hard on the moon. “Want to make a final bargain?”